Every traveler must try wantan noodles 雲吞麵 in Hong Kong. Hong Kong people are so obsessed with it that the cooking process of wantan noodles must be strictly adhered to. Other than the oh-so-famous Tsim Tsai Kee and Mak Kee at Central, Mak Man Kee, situated next to Australia Dairy Co., seems like a good choice too. After our satisfying meal of scrambled eggs and steamed milk puddings, we hopped over to Mak Man Kee to justify how good is the highly rated wantan noodles. To kill two birds with one stone huh?

Upon stepping inside, there are the typical booth seats, which almost are the trademarks of all Cha Chan Teng or Meen Gar (noodles house) in Hong Kong. Famous for their predominantly prawn wantans and braised pork trotters, business is brisk even on a Thursday afternoon. Even though we had a heavy lunch earlier, we were still pretty much determined to devote every inch of our stomach space for these goodies.

The wantan noodles came in a somewhat dainty bowl with size slightly smaller than normal rice bowl. The Hong Kongers call this sai yong 細蓉, loosely translated to small morsels. All we can see is the strands of noodles and nothing else. Is that all? No, the treasures were hidden under the bowl actually!

The style of presentation for wantan noodles is different in Hong Kong. The spoon must be placed at the bottom of the bowl, followed by cooked wantans and noodles. The noodles are blanched for a good 10 seconds and plunged into cold water to ensure a firm and springy texture. Lastly, hot bouillon is scooped into the serving bowl.

so small that it can be devour in like two bites

In each wantan, we found two prawns with no traces of pork at all. The fresh prawns gave some really crunchy and springy bite. Absolutely delicious! The as thin as thread duck egg noodles, was cooked al dente but there was a light lye water taste to it. The flavorful but light boullian is the key to a bowl of perfect wantan noodles. It was boiled for 4-5 hours daily, using only the freshest ingredients like pork bone and dried flounder 大地魚.

We had another variant of the duck egg noodles with fermented beancurd (nam yu) braised pork trotters.The skin was chewy and gelatinous while the meat was soft, tender and well-seasoned. Mak Man Kee is not famous for their braised pork trotters for no reason!

churning out noodles at a frenetic pace

Parkes Street – the gateway to the best scrambled eggs and wantan noodles.

(click to enlarge)

Now we understand the maddening quest of those Hong Konger for the perfect noodles and wontons. Mak Man Kee may not have the best wantan noodles in Hong Kong (failed to get rid of the lye water taste), but there’s no harm trying if you are around Jordon area.

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19 Comments

the spoon is to keep the noodles from getting too soaked in the broth and getting soggy, i heard
excited to see you starting on the wantan noodles! hehe. if i ever head to australia dairy co (still lusting after the perfect looking eggs in your bread), will def. check this out too

One should not forget the soup that comes with your wantan noodle. In HK, the soup is of TOP Quality !!!. Wantan Noodle serving is usually small in size. One reason is to prevent the noodle from getting too soft.. You don’t get double noodle in one bowl here… You have order to bowls of wantan noodle if you are still hungry..which many ppl do. One should only order the second bowl, after having finished eating the first bowl….

I just went to Mak Man Kee with some fellow bloggers from Malaysia and Australia too recently! (Haven’t had time to blog about it yet haha!)

As a Hong Konger, I surprisingly find myself to deviate slightly from others when it comes to finding the best Wonton noodles bowl in HK. As you can see on Openrice, this shop gets raving reviews but after a few visits including this recent one, I think it is a little over-board.

Surprisingly, the best overall wonton bowl I had was at Chee Kee @ Causeway Bay branch only. The noodles are tasty, the soup is pretty good with influence of flounder and prawn roes and some special chinese medicine. Tthe wontons may not have the best crunchiest prawns on earth, even if you order their higher end fresh prawn series, but at least they get the overall balance of pork and prawns flavouring right. But look on Openrice and it gets average ratings! Go figure!

I think Mak An Kee in Central still serves the best soup, Ho Hung Kee (Michelin 1 Star) or sibling Tasty Congee is overall pretty good rather than amazing, and 佳記麵家 has the best hand-made noodles. They all have some flaws 1 way or another, and that’s why I came up with picking Chee Kee as my overall most preferred! Its just my subjective opinion!

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Kampungboycitygal.com is a Malaysian Food and Travel blog. The "dynamic duo" has been blogging since December 2005 and now the blog generates more than 4,000 unique visitors and 8,000 page views a day and most of their travel posts have garnered a lot of positive responses and feedback. The blog has been featured in numerous local and international press such as The Star, Malay Mail, CNNGO, Travel+Leisure and New York Times.

With a comprehensive list of food haunts in Kuala Lumpur and detailed itineraries all in one blog, Kampungboycitygal is definitely the blog to visit before a vacation or, when the hunger pangs hit!